6.4

Question 1

Primary economic factors of imperialism

Answer 1

Agriculture and raw materials

Industrialized nations needed more raw materials for factories, and more food for their growing urban populations.

Question 2

Agriculture: economic development during the age of imperialism

Answer 2

AFRICA:
Previous to European imperialism, African used subsistence farming. After imperialism, cash crop (sugar, coffee, rubber) farming dominated agriculture.

GENERAL:
Growing middle class w/ extra money meant an increased demand for meat, especially beef. This led to colonial societies in Argentina and Uruguay particularly mass-raising cattle for export, which was successfully transported over the Atlantic due to new refrigeration technologies applied to ships.
Guano (bat and seabird poop) were recognized as fertilizer, and demand for the product grew as cash crop cultivation grew across the world. Guano became a major economic cornerstone of Peru and Chile.

Question 3

What is a cash crop?

Answer 3

A crop grown for commercial purposes rather than domestic consumption

Question 4

What is subsistence farming?

Answer 4

The pattern of growing/cultivating only enough food to live or sustain a local population

Question 5

Raw materials: economic development during the age of imperialism

Answer 5

Raw materials were collected from colonies by imperial nations.
Examples:
- cotton
*~80% of the cotton used for British textiles was exported from America during the Industrial Revolution. Cotton exports plummeted, however, during the Civil War (as it hinged upon the fate of enslaved Africans, which was the primary workforce that sustained the U.S. economy through cotton production). So, Britain turned to Egypt and India for sources of cotton; in the late 19th century, 90% of Egypt’s exports were cotton.

• Rubber: used for tires, shoe soles, machine gaskets. Came from rubber trees, plentiful in the Amazon Rainforests.
  *Natives in American colonies forced into rubber collection, led to the eventual desolation of the rubber tree population
• Palm oil: mainly sourced from West Africa, where it was used as an important food crop. Important bc it was used as a lubricant for factory machines, and imperial powers turned it into a cash crop cultivated by low-wage or slave work forces.
• Diamonds
  *1871 diamond rush in South Africa; exported 90% of the world’s diamonds by 1890. Can be connected to the closeness by which African colonial societies were conducted between Europeans and Africans, leading to legal segregation through the apartheid policies.
  *Cecil Rhodes made DeBeers Mining Co., accumulated power, was elected to South African Parliament and became the Prime Minister of Cape Colony by 1890.

Question 6

Economic consequences of imperialism

Answer 6

1) colonial societies became more integrated into the global economy. Imperial powers would get food and raw materials from colonies, and then use those raw materials to create products that they would sell back to the colonies.
2) Weakened colonial economies due to shift to cash crop economies.
- traditional agricultural staples were sacrificed for cash crop cultivation
- dependence on very few crops = high financial risk if something goes wrong.
*ex of risk: soil depletion was common amongst cotton cultivators, because cotton especially depletes soil nutrients